Intrepid Experiment

18 October 2010

Mama said there'll be days like this, There'll be days like this my Mama said. . .

Today, not unlike most days, I managed to:

• Sweep all the floors and mop them. (This helps to keep the ant invaders at bay; notice I said “helps” but does eliminate the little buggers all-together. Did you know that big black ants stink when you smoosh them? Must be a warning adaptation, except the rest are not heeding the warning!)

• Make a healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner for my family—including the requisite fruit (easy) and vegetables (not so easy) for the day.

• Wash and hang to dry three loads of laundry.

• Iron, gasp, yes—IRON shirts and slacks for hubby’s work. Ack. There will be a day when the iron will be retired for all eternity, and I won’t miss it.

• Wash two loads of dishes, by hand. This is because maids in this country do not need dish washing machines (oh really?!) and so our villa was not equipped, nor does it have space for one—not that we could find one anyway.

• School-at-home my eldest son (not the same as home schooling as I am finding out—more on this later) while engaging in meaningful and educational activities with my youngest son. He is starting to read—blending sounds in three letter words. Atta boy!

• Fold and put clean laundry away.

• Bake two batches of bread.

• Cook a pot of home made creamy chicken wild rice soup—yum!

• Bake a batch of home made chocolate chip cookies (and freeze another batch for another day).

• Pick up enough toys to outfit a small island nation.

• Read a book . . . to the boys. My book-a-day turned book-a-week turned book-a-month-if-I’m-lucky reading habit has turned to more the seasonal variety of reading (and there are only two seasons over here!) But someday the boys will be old enough to read a whole book all by themselves and I will read again. Yes I will.

• Watch my children play at the park, my bum firmly planted on a bench as I was too exhausted to move, mostly. I did do two laps around the park, the boys on the plasma car while I loped along behind in my flip-flops.

• Get teeth brushed (the boys’ teeth, not mine. Yet.)

• Check email. Yikes.

• Take out the rubbish.

• Write this post. And judging from the long spaces in between posts I will say this is quite an accomplishment, yes it is.

What I managed not to do today:

• Get a much needed and even more deserved nap (it’s been over five years since I’ve had a decent sleep).

• Take a shower. Enough said.

• Take time for myself (except the fifteen minutes before hubby came home when I locked the children in the TV room and escaped to the bed to look at photos of the boys when they were smaller to remind myself how much I love them. . . because

• I did not give my sons away to a band of roving gypsies even though I would have been sorely tempted to do so. Today. Right now I’m really glad there were no gypsies to tempt me. I have wonderful boys and I think I’ll keep them, thank you very much.

• I did not bake the snickerdoodle cookies I’ve been craving. Although, perhaps if I had made and eaten the snickerdoodle cookies, the boys’ bickering would not have driven me to think of giving them away to gypsies. . . or was it the “I’m not going to love you anymore!” I got from the oldest, and the “I’m not going to clean up, I’m not!” from the youngest? Really, they are very sweet boys and quite well behaved and wonderful helpers, most of the time. Just not today.

Mama said, Hey! Don't you worry. . .

Maybe Mama knew what she was talking about. Some days I can’t see the forest for the trees. But most days I’m ever so grateful for this life I’m living.

And for the record, the big boy still loves me! and the little boy did pick up his toys. Hubby did the last load of dishes after supper and I did take a little time for myself, right now, to write this all down, while Daddy is reading stories to the little guys. Life is good.

10 October 2010

No, we're not on our way back "home." I'm just making an attempt to get back into blogging! It's been seven months now and I miss it. We've had our fair share of sickness and travel and changing schedules while I've been gone from blogging, so there is a lot to look back upon and draw inspiration from. The trick has always been to find the time to sit down and just do it. After all, this is for me. I guess it's too easy to let me-time take a back burner to everything else that needs to be done in a day.

And for those who are curious to know. . . we now have a little blue Jazz. I want to say robin's egg blue, but Smurf-mobile is what actually comes to mind. The car saga continues!

27 March 2010

Sorry for the long absence, but I wanted to post a quick note to let you know that I have been on sick leave from blogging. I have managed nearly a whole year without so much as a little old cold or flu and now I am knocked on my backside by a whopper of a sinus infection! Not to mention that the boys are sick, sick, sick. Eric might even have the chicken pox.

So if I have to choose between writing and sleeping (because I do have to choose), then my choice is SLEEP!

I hope to be back in a week or two to share some thoughts about living in Dubai. Until then, I hope all are well and busy welcoming spring (it was 106F here today). Hah.

02 February 2010

Today was our 500th day in the UAE. Only 500 days to go, give or take.I’m not much of a milestone person. No, really.I’m lucky if I can remember when my children were born; heck, I’m lucky if I can remember how old I am. I spent all of my 35th year thinking I was 36. Boy was I surprised at that birthday! Graduations came and went. Boy and I were married on the Summer Solstice. I thought this would help me remember the date; however, that year the solstice was on the 20th, not the 21st, so I still get mixed up.

But the other night I was sitting at the computer catching up with email and blog reading when a voice rang out in the night, “Five hundred days.”

“What was that, sweetie?”

“We’re half-way there.”

“Half-way where?” I ask.

“We’ve been in the UAE for 500 days, tomorrow. Only 514 to go,” says Boy.

Now, I’m not a mathematician (that’s my mom) or a physicist (that’s my dad) or even super duper smart (that’s my husband), but I do believe that 500+514 = 1014. Divide that by two and you get 507, which would make half-way there a week from now.But who am I to argue? It must be new math. Or maybe it’s old? Or maybe it’s just close enough for someone who likes to lie awake at night crunching numbers just for fun. I married my mother! What does that say about me?

Anyway, Boy loves to number crunch and mark milestones. We celebrate birthdays and half-birthdays. We even celebrated our billion-second birthdays, just because we could. He knows when our children were born. He knows their social security numbers. He knows when we were married.And he knows, roughly, when we will be leaving here.

So, back to half-way there. The thought of it leads me to think about our staying or going.It’s a question we get asked a lot, a question we ask each other. A lot. How long are we staying?The truth is, we don’t know. We are here on a three year contract; however, there is a chance we will be offered the opportunity to renew. At that point, we could stay another one to three years, with opportunities to renew every three years. Some people don’t even last for their first year here. Others have been around for twelve or twenty or more. Since we’ve made it to the half-way mark, we are likely to last our tour of duty. We are also working on our “exit strategy” which means we are unlikely to get “stuck” for additional years; we will only be staying with the college’s good graces and our own desire. Why stay? It’s the money, plain and simple. Where else and when else in our lives will we be able to save so much?! We can save as much in one year here as we were able to earn, after taxes, with both of us working back home on teachers’ salaries. There is also the glorious sun and the wonderful beaches full of seashells and soft sand with warm waters to swim in. Prime beach time is six months out of the year here, compared to one month a year back home. But there is a cost. And it’s huge—we have no family. Some people decide to make the friends they have here their surrogate families, and I can understand that.We’ve done that—birthdays and holidays are prime times to miss the ones we love back home and so we surround ourselves with our UAE friends. But always we know they are just temporary.No one knows when their time will be up in this place.

And so we talk a lot about staying and going. We love the sun and the beaches and the savings, but we miss the trees and the rain (and snow!) and visiting family. We enjoy our friends, the cultural diversity, our home and affordable health care, and not to forget—our job. Boy loves his job here.Don’t even get him started on Texas! But we long for a home in the country where we can see stars (Boy is an astronomy guy after all) and breathe clean air and garden! and keep a few chickens and maybe even bees. We have dreams. And those dreams do not look like camels wandering over sand dunes or spectacular sunsets. They aren’t dreams of crystal blue oceans or even white sand beaches. But right now, that is the dream we are living.And we are grateful. Grateful for the opportunity to live here and experience this part of the world and all the cultures that come together to make the UAE the amazing and exciting and sometimes completely exasperating place that it is.I never in a million years imagined myself living this life in this place, yet here I am. And it is good. But I can’t help but think about how good it will be to go home, wherever that home may be.But that is a thought for another day. . .

01 February 2010

My apologies for such a quiet week. I am still trying to get into a groove. . . we also have been hit by the super-bug. Yup. Boo was sick. Again. This time, I hit him with antibiotics and he seems to be resting well tonight. More on medicine in Dubai another time. . .

Because. . . it is past midnight (oops, missed my January 31 deadline to post!) and I am off to bed. But first I would like to post a few pictures from January in Dubai. Enjoy!

Fossil hunting. . . future paleontologist?

Removable, re-stickable, really colorful. Best boy room ever.

Sunset in Mirdif.

A great big thank you! to AnnMarie in Alaska for helping me with positioning pictures in my post. Cut and paste. It doesn't get any easier than that :)

24 January 2010

First, let me begin by saying that we have lived in the UAE for seventeen months now, and that includes the eight weeks we were in the United States and Canada last summer for our mandatory summer holiday. In those seventeen months, we have driven seven different cars. Eight if you count our car back home. Uffda.

Our first car in the UAE was a red Honda Jazz. The first time I saw it I was not impressed. How could we fit all our stuff? How could this compact car possibly be safe on the crazy streets around here? Since I was the one driving for the first few weeks (I was on a visitor visa and therefore allowed to drive with my US driver’s license; my husband had a work visa and therefore needed a UAE license to drive), I was pretty much hoping for a great big gas-guzzling SUV to keep my children safe. Since we were renting the vehicle, costs allowed us only the smallest class of vehicle. Besides, I’m a tree-hugger through and through and I’m sure I would have a crisis of conscience if I ever set foot in a full-sized SUV. Therefore, the Honda Jazz, aka: Honda Fit.

Anyway, little red Jazz turned out to be a great car. It was zippy and responsive and had a whole lot more trunk space than I ever thought possible. Oh, and we routinely got the equivalent of 37-39 mpg. Nice. But little red Jazz needed its yearly maintenance and so was exchanged for a wretched Toyota Yaris with absolutely no trunk space. Let it be said that I like Toyota; I just don’t like the no trunk space. We learned we would not be getting our red Jazz back since it was old enough to be sold out of their fleet of cars. We only had a few weeks left before our summer holiday, so we lumped the no trunk space and got on with it. Until, the manic driving over here got the best of me. With just two weeks to go and accident-free in the UAE, I was hit from behind while stopped at a red light. Luckily, the boys and I were fine; the car was not. So wretched white Yaris went bye-bye and we were given the only available car in our class-a black Honda Jazz. Ugh. We. Live. In. A. Hot. Desert. Black cars may be a status symbol here, but we are not status symbol kind of people! But again, we only had two weeks to go, so we took the car and went on our merry way, only to vow we would never drive a black car in the desert again.

One summer holiday later, we are at the Dubai airport in the 125F heat (mind you it’s 11:00p.m.) waiting for our rental car that we reserved before we left (with specific instructions for any color but black). Oops. No record of a reservation. In fact, no record of our previous ten month rental history with them. And unlike the US, the rental companies here don’t really care if you are a satisfied customer. We have been routinely up-graded in the US when rental companies do not have our requested vehicle available (and sometimes even when they do just to make us happy campers and hopefully repeat customers). Over an hour later, standing in the 125F parking lot with much too much luggage and two small boys who had been traveling for over twenty-four hours, the Hertz Rental Company decided they could bring in a Jazz from another site. It took them less than twenty minutes. It was black. I didn’t care. We drove it for over four months while we waited for a replacement. . . and then came the Oman trip. Hooray for an expired registration. We ended up with another black Jazz for the holiday, but immediately traded it in for a yellow Jazz. Yes, yellow. Love it. No way would anyone miss seeing us on the road. No way would I lose the car in the crowded parking lot. I was in love, with a car.

But some love stories have sad endings. Even though there was no possible way any living, breathing driver on the crazy UAE roads could ever miss seeing our car, a young girl just happened to prove that theory wrong. I would like to add that my husband and I were on our first date since moving to the UAE in September of 2008. We enjoyed a quiet dinner and a decent movie. We were on our way home when aforementioned young lady hit us from behind. Might I also add that we were stopped in a long queue of cars about 300m from the intersection when we were hit. Oh, and it might be worth mentioning that she hit us not once, but twice. Evidently she wasn’t quite finished with us the first time. So now I am left with a sore neck and back and more than a headache or two, and a silver Toyota Yaris. Ack! No trunk space. I think I might have to call Hertz every day until I get another little yellow Jazz. Or red. Or white. Anything but black.

20 January 2010

On Monday we took a vacation from our perpetual vacation, a dhow excursion to see fjords and dolphins in the Khor Sham (Arabian Gulf) in the country of Oman.

We had heard about the dhow excursions and dolphin sightings off the coast of Khasab, the capital of Musandam. After a bit of searching, we found the company that had been recommended to us, Khasab Travel and Tours, and booked the trip. We really wanted to see those dolphins, but knew it was only a possibility, not a guarantee (these are wild dolphins, after all).

Oman is a mere hour and a half from where we live in Dubai, and Khasab just an hour and half further. We packed up the boys and a picnic and headed for the border. It was one adventure after another! We have become accustomed to seeing wild camels in the dessert (someone somewhere owns them, and if you hit one you will pay, literally), but we were not prepared to see wild cows. Ok, maybe they weren’t really wild, but they were walking down the middle of the city streets of Ras al Khaimah and there were no shepherds to be seen. Then there were goats. Goats everywhere! I love this country.

Three hours, a very windy mountain road, a dozen wayward cows and quite possibly hundreds of goats later, we found ourselves at the departure spot. We almost drove right past—the travel “agency” was a trailer parked in a sand lot at the base of a mountain. In their defense, it was across the road from a small port and it did have a small sign. They greeted us by name and sent us down the road for a spell until the dhow was due to depart. What a treasure trove of seashells we discovered! I don’t think there is anything Boy and I like better than a day at the beach looking for seashells. Oman was our little piece of heaven on earth. Even the boys found lots of treasures. We might have missed our excursion, except we were the only party booked for the afternoon—a private tour!

Our guide, Mohammed, was quite a character. A native of Kumzar, Oman, he was fluent in forty-five dialects of his native language! I have no way to verify this, but I have no reason to doubt him either. He brought us to see the most amazing fjords/mountains. I couldn’t help but wish my college geology prof were there!

To make the day complete, we saw dolphins. Lots of dolphins. Unlike their captive counterparts, the wild dolphins do not like to swim with people or eat food out of their hands; they are afraid and will leave if you attempt either. But they love to race boats! We saw a particularly playful calf with its mother. What a treat to see such clever and graceful animals in the wild.

Before heading back to shore, we stopped at Telegraph Island. If I remember correctly, it is the location where the British first laid telegraph cable in this area in 1864. It was manned for only ten years, the gentleman deciding it was way too hot to stay longer! We were there in the hot January sun; I can’t imagine holding down the fort, so to speak, in July or August. Ugh. Boy and number one son swam from the dhow to the island to explore (what 5-year-old boy doesn’t love to explore an island?!). Before leaving, they left their mark in the form of an Inukshuk, not the first on the island, and I’m sure not the last.

In the end, a wonderful time was had by all. Oh man, we loved Oman. We will be back next year!

p.s. Does anyone know how to insert pictures in the body of the text? I could only figure out how to place them at the beginning of the post.